After that first night, Nikki didn’t join me on the stakeout. I didn’t blame her. I decided to take some of Nikki’s fee and go hi-tech. On Ira’s recommendation, I got a couple of good night-vision cameras and set them up. I had a down the street shot and one from above on the roof of the building across from the dock. The hardest part wasn’t climbing up the fire escapes, but remembering Ira’s instructions for setting them up.
I didn’t even have to change tapes or memory cards as they uploaded to the cloud. From there, I could watch the cameras on fast forward, going through an entire day’s recording in about two hours. Stakeouts would never be the same.
The angles got me company logos and truck numbers, but nothing stuck out. Most were local places, bringing in the food, merch, and laundry for the club, which made sense. But then, on day four, I caught a break.
Two box trucks came back-to-back. They turned out to be from a cargo place that worked out of the Belport airport. I had been expecting the port, especially if they were bringing it in from Japan, China, and Russia, but the airport was plausible for other kinds of goods. I wouldn’t put it past some private charter plane to slip things past customs.
I called up Nikki. “You ready for the urgent part?”